... rambling and hungry... not a good mix.
So this kinda of ticked me off. I use Facebook Fan Pages a lot for landing pages and obviously for my websites. I just upgraded and man I am in pain because it ruined my landing pages using the FBML App. The FBML App allows me to utilize HTML and CSS in a customized tabbed box. It also allowed me to create a facebook gateway, meaning I get to tell the end user to LIKE the page before getting a download. Incentivizing the traffic.
Now, I think they did away of that option. Allowing you to specifically show what "tab" to show when a new person arrives to the fan page. This was helpful because instead of showing the wall, I get to show a custom design or landing page to the end user. It provided an instant landing page, very helpful to all marketers branding and creating online recognition.
Since I just upgraded, everything is broken, not broken but only showing parts of images. My landing pages are usually full graphics, now with the upgrade the width of the Facebook Fan Pages are now 495 from the original 525, it sucks.
The new fan page designs are mocking the new profile upgrades we all received in the past, having the images at the top and the wall feed, etc. I do not know why Facebook is doing it this way as it isn't a personal profile, it is a fan page. I may understand fan pages for public figures but what about websites? It doesn't make sense to create a Fan Page similar to a profile.
Some other distinctions I found is you can log in as your fan page, since you are the admin you technically can switch who you want to be, pointless I think. Another interesting part is I share a link on Twitter about how to target facebook tabs.
So now this sucks for any company using Fan Pages as a landing page. Now Fan Page contest won't be productive, branding will not be as powerful, capturing leads will not be doable, just a lot of down sides for marketers.
The best part about the Facebook fan pages is using it as a gateway and a upfront poster to incoming traffic. Directing traffic to the fan page wall will not help in any companies branding at all. Maybe I couldn't find the option to show specific tabs to non "likers", but couldn't find it and I thought it was the most powerful part of a fan page. In any case my fan page landing pages are useless, now time to adopt.
BTW March 11th, no more FBML it will be all iframes...
On March 11, 2011, you will no longer be able to create new FBML apps and Pages will no longer be able to add the Static FBML app. While all existing apps on Pages using FBML or the Static FBML app will continue to work, we strongly recommend that these apps transition to iframes as soon as possible. Lastly, we want to be clear that our deprecation of FBML does not impact XFBML, such as the tags that support social plugins.
FBML was the best part as well for all companies and businesses, it allowed to do so much. I wonder how companies like Lujure adjust to this change, since their services was all based on providing custom FBML tabs to companies.
